`Spawn`¶

Look up any actor in the world by spawn id or by name.

Forms¶

actor `Spawn[id]`¶

Returns the actor with that numeric spawn id.

actor `Spawn[name]`¶

Returns the actor whose name matches name — case-insensitive, exact match, not a partial. Returns nil if no loaded actor has that name.

Usage¶

local byId   = mq.TLO.Spawn[12345]
local byName = mq.TLO.Spawn["a decaying skeleton"]

if byName then
  eq2.print(byName.Name() .. " @ " .. byName.Distance())
end

The two forms behave differently on failure¶

This trips people up, so it's worth stating plainly:

Form	No match
`Spawn[name]`	Returns `nil`.
`Spawn[id]`	Returns an actor table whose `ID()` is `0`, not `nil`.

The name lookup walks the loaded-actor list and can tell you it found nothing. The id lookup builds a reference to that id and resolves lazily on each member call, so it has nothing to report at index time.

The check that covers both:

local s = mq.TLO.Spawn[key]
if s and s.ID() ~= 0 then
  ...
end

Name matching is exact¶

Spawn["skeleton"] will not find "a decaying skeleton". For partial or pattern matching, filter Spawns() yourself:

local function find(pattern)
  for _, s in ipairs(mq.TLO.Spawns()) do
    if s.Name():lower():find(pattern:lower(), 1, true) then return s end
  end
end

local mob = find("skeleton")

Names are also not unique — several actors can share one. The name form returns the first match in enumeration order, which is not a stable ordering. When you need a specific actor across time, capture its ID() and use the id form.

References stay live¶

An actor obtained from Spawn[id] is a reference, not a snapshot. Its members re-resolve on every call, so it keeps tracking that actor as it moves, takes damage, and eventually despawns — at which point ID() starts returning 0. You can hold one across an eq2.delay() safely, as long as you re-check ID().

Spawn¶